“Without owning something over an extended period of time—like a few years—where one has a chance to take responsibility for one’s recommendations, where one has to see one’s recommendations through all action stages, and accumulate scar tissue from the mistakes, and pick oneself up off the ground, and dust oneself off, one learns a fraction of what one can. Coming in and making recommendations without owning the results, without owning the implementation, I think is a fraction of the value, and a fraction of the opportunity to learn and get better.”—Steve Jobs in a lecture at MIT
This is the best explanation for ‘skin in the game’ that I’ve come across.
Implicit within this quote is ‘skin in the game’ is also a willingness to fail publicly under one’s own name. Along with all the risks, there are also outsized benefits if you win.